


Not Quite Lovers

by Nebulad



Series: Sea of Stars [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Fluff, ME1 Pining, no actual relationship besides best friends who probably want to kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 13:42:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5092910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nebulad/pseuds/Nebulad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Garrus Vakarian wasn’t the first turian that Faust had ever met. That honour went to Nihilus, who had also ended up being the first dead turian she’d ever seen. When the engineers were working on the Normandy, she was still on the Tokyo running errands for Anderson; she’d never been to the Citadel before getting blasted with the beacon, so her very first turian had been the Spectre.</p><p>Garrus Vakarian was a lot better looking than Nihilus was though, which seemed rude to think because the guy was shot dead on a foreign colony planet. It wasn’t like anyone could hear her opinion so long as she didn’t accidentally blurt it out, which she had thus far very luckily managed to avoid, so she didn’t really begrudge herself the absent.... lingering on him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Garrus Vakarian wasn’t the first turian that Faust had ever met. That honour went to Nihilus, who had also ended up being the first dead turian she’d ever seen. When the engineers were working on the Normandy, she was still on the Tokyo running errands for Anderson; she’d never been to the Citadel before getting blasted with the beacon, so her very first turian had been the Spectre.

Garrus Vakarian was a lot better looking than Nihilus was though, which seemed rude to think because the guy was shot dead on a foreign colony planet. It wasn’t like anyone could _hear_ her opinion so long as she didn’t accidentally blurt it out, which she had thus far very luckily managed to avoid, so she didn’t really begrudge herself the absent.... lingering on him.

She’d asked permission to read his file, same as she’d done for every other crewmate. It was generally… easier to do than talk to people directly, and bypassed all the awkward _name, age, service record_ smalltalk. She especially liked it because it let her casually avoid talking about Mindoir, Akuze, and literally anything else anyone had to ask her.

“Of course you can read it,” he’d said, looking unbelievably thrown off. “Is it… customary to ask permission in the Alliance?” She snorted a little, shaking her head.

“No, but this isn’t- we’re not really running a standard Alliance operation here so I thought I’d ask. There’s actually no reason for me to read your file since C-Sec sent me an email of reccomendation-”

“They what?” Garrus’ voice had gone flat and he looked all at once apprehensive and disturbed.

“Someone named Talus sent me an email that spoke very highly of you. Is that… odd?” she asked. It had seemed sort of odd just because officers usually used first and last names in addition to rank, but this email had only been signed _Talus._ It was from a confirmed C-Sec account, though, so she figured maybe it was just someone who didn’t want to get in shit for supporting the Normandy.

“N-No, Commander. I just got a… different sort of email. It doesn’t matter- I’m glad to be aboard and working with you either way,” he said with a short salute. Merde _but he’s a tall one…_

She supposed she’d see just how tall when she opened his file.

. . . . .

Garrus Vakarian (turians didn’t use middle names) was twenty-six years old, seven feet tall (shockingly average for the species), and had more write-ups for insubordination and unlawful use of force than Faust had ever seen (since the last time she looked at her own record, at least). He had a father (Talus Vakarian, which sort of enlightened her on why he was so weird about the email she’d gotten), a mother (Mesia Vakarian, née Farius, who had remarkably little information recorded besides a long career as a military surgeon that had come to an abrupt end for undisclosed reasons), and a younger sister (Solana Vakarian, still in the turian military).

He’d served an apparently perfunctory amount of years in the military before being honourably discharged to join his father on the Citadel to become a C-Sec officer. From there it had apparently been a long and successful career struggling to not get kicked off the force, with only his impressive record of successful arrests keeping him from formal reprimand. He’d even climbed pretty steadily through the ranks despite a penchant for trouble.

No wonder he was so excited to work with a Spectre; no reprimands on this ship. Faust would be a hypocrite to try doling them out.

When she wandered back down to the Mako to talk to Garrus again, she found him rummaging through _her_ files. She offered them to whoever wanted to see- she had two versions, one official military copy that was confidential, and one that was generally trimmed down neatly to use as a brief introduction to new bosses.

Or her crew, now that there were very few higher ranking people in the Galaxy.

“Commander!” He noticed her and quickly shut the screen on his omnitool down as if she hadn’t given him permission to look.

“See anything good?” she asked teasingly.

“I uh- I’m sorry-”

“I let you have access,” she reminded him.

“Right. I just-... I don’t get to work with a lot of humans. Most of my interaction with them is either handing them paperwork or… tackling them,” he admitted.

“I saw that, though your favourite seemed to be punching,” she said with a lazy grin, hopping up to take a seat on the Mako. His fringe raised and his mandibles spread and he looked… angry?

“I don’t do it unless I’m positive,” he insisted ferociously. “I’m not a dirty cop, Shepard, I’m just impatient. I never put my _hands_ on anyone unless I have evidence- you can pour through whatever records you want, but I’ve never gone after someone who didn’t deserve it,” he snapped. She put her hands up, nodding.

“I wasn’t implying that you had,” she assured him. “I was joking.” His whole body seemed to relax, and she couldn’t be sure in the low lighting but it looked like his neck went a little bit dark.

“Sorry. Hard to tell on humans- your faces are a lot more flexible,” he muttered. She laughed a little, swinging her legs off the edge of the Mako.

“You got plenty of time to learn about weird human faces now, Vakarian,” she said encouragingly. He looked up at her, then down again quickly. “Something to say?”

“What are- those things. On the sides of your head?” he blurted.

“My… ears?” she asked, tugging on one of them. He nodded. “They’re… ears. They hear stuff,” she said. He nodded quickly, like it was embarrassing to not have known. In retrospect, humans were the only known species _with_ ears, unless quarians had them too- even then, they wouldn’t really be immediately recognizable. “Can I ask something?”

“Of course, Commander.”

“The part of your armour, the uh-,” she traced a wide circle around her neck.

“My carapace?”

“Is that what it’s called? Is that a part of your body or an aesthetic thing?” she asked. He smiled, almost nervously.

“It’s part of us,” he confirmed.

“Neat,” she said thoughtfully, trying to picture what he’d look like naked. _That probably isn’t good, stop that._ She dragged her eyes back up to his head, and found him watching her. “You don’t have to wait for me to prompt you, y’know,” she said.

“Y-Yes. Commander. On your… head. I know it’s called hair but what’s the _point?”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im at home and internet is so difficult and the mouse is so difficult and everything is difficult except for shakarian. that is pure and wholesome, and I noticed that there's a lot of "ME2 shep dies and garrus is like wtf the fuck I was crushin' hardcore" but no me1 garrus and shep are both mutually positive that nothing is going to happen between them and end up building a positive and mutually inspiring friendship before me2 wherein theyre like lmao wait we cAN KISS TOO??


	2. Chapter 2

Faust _felt_ the krogan run into her, but not much after that. She laid on the ground in a sort of daze, her head spinning- had she knocked it off of something? The ground? A wall? The fucking krogan? She wondered if she was dying but decided not to worry about it. She wasn’t passing out but there was a persistent ringing in her ears that wasn’t being helped by the constant gunfire.

It all ended pretty quickly and she felt Garrus try to decide whether she was injured enough to touch or still too conscious to risk insubordination. There was a rumbling shout and a hand on her shoulder- Wrex, but he wasn’t making any sense. “We might have a problem,” she said groggily.

There was a nervous sort of clicking that she vaguely registered as Garrus’ voice. It was deep enough, but he wasn’t… saying words. He _was_ talking to her though, and seemed worried. Maybe. She wasn’t seeing him very clearly. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

Garrus very gingerly reached out to touch her head and she let him. Between him and Wrex, she would have probably assigned _field medic_ to the turian, had she been in her right mind. He was making some absent, weird alien chirping noises that were… sort of precious. She may have suffered a recent head injury but it was like flanging, low pitched chirping. He seemed concerned when she started laughing. “You sound fun- _tabarnak_ , fuck, what did you just-” Garrus jerked his hand away.

Faust gingerly reached back and realized what the issue was. She had a relatively low cost translation chip embedded behind her ear on the lower back part of her skull, and she’d fallen and it’d split in two and broke the skin. The stinging washed over her all at once and she hissed in pain. “My translator’s broken,” she said, and Garrus actually looked relieved.

Wrex said something, and Faust marvelled at how similar the krogan language sounded to frogs bellowing. Garrus scowled at him and chirped something back and Faust couldn’t swallow back her laughter. “Shit, is that what turians actually sound like?” Garrus looked offended and Wrex laughed. “It’s nothing bad, but you’re all so… gruff and official. You sound like birds.”

Garrus said something with a rude sort of inflection that Faust was sure a bird would _never_ use- except maybe a Canadian Goose, but she couldn’t linger on that thought because then she’d start wondering if Garrus could honk- and abruptly lifted her up off the ground. “Ohh, I like this. My hero,” she teased, poking him squarely in the chest.

He chirped shortly and she giggled.

. . . . .

Garrus had been talking for ten minutes before he seemed to clue in that Faust had taken off her translator. She’d been given a temporary one- a ring, fitted tightly onto her right hand ring finger that she occasionally slipped off. “Shepard,” he scolded, and she slid it back on.

“I like your language,” she protested.

“It’s the Turian Galactic Standard,” he said with a shrug.

“What does that mean?”

“It means turians have been around longer than humans- long enough that we had to find a standard way to communicate to other planets,” he explained. “Translators weren’t always this good- people needed to be able to read road signs. Almost every species has a common dialect they use for aliens.” He looked up and found her staring at him with absolute focus. “Did you take the ring off again?” he asked.

“No. You’re just interesting to listen to,” she said, holding out her hand so he could see the translator. “I like hearing you in your own language too.” She _definitely_ saw a little bit of a blush on his neck, blue-grey against his skin. It was sort of thrilling- she wondered what he thought of humans… in a physical sense. Too weird? Too foreign?

“Thank-you, Commander,” he said gruffly, but she could see him smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should clarify the last author's note: not "but also we can kiss" but more along the lines of "u ALSO want to kiss?!!?" also: chirpy birb


	3. Chapter 3

Garrus was whistling when she found him in the mess after taking down Dr. Heart. She nudged him with her hip, sidestepping him to get at some levo-meals. “Feeling good, Officer Vakarian?” she asked. He grinned down at her and she liked the expression, liked that he was happy, liked that he was less _tense._

“He died knowing that I caught up with him- knowing that all the horrible things he’s done over the years haven’t been ignored, that he didn’t _play_ the system. That’s a good feeling, Commander,” he said, and didn’t even sound like he was being forced to admit it.

“Hang onto it,” she advised.

“I will- and Commander?” She inclined her head. “I-I’m going to put my name up for Spectre training again. I need this- I want to make the galaxy a better place and I can’t _do_ that if I’m constantly dancing around the brass’ politics.”

“That’s amazing,” she said, and was genuinely taken aback. There was a passion behind his eyes that she hadn’t… seen in anyone else in a long time. The Normandy crew was passionate but Garrus was ready to give himself up to the universe to protect it, no matter the cost. He’d struggled for so long with the idea of sacrificing civilian lives, and there he was, prepared to take the blow for all of them.

“Well, it’s not really _hunting down Saren to save the universe,_ but I’m excited,” he said with a self-conscious shrug.

“No, honestly- it’s a lot of personal… responsibility to take on your own justice. I think that’s… neat.” Well, _neat_ wasn’t entirely accurate. She was trying not to abruptly remember how attractive he was, or the way he’d practically growled at Dr. Heart: _I’d harvest your organs first, but we don’t have the time._ She’d never thought she had a thing for turians, but in all fairness, Garrus was only the second one she’d ever met.

And he was a damn fine specimen.

“Neat?” he asked, like he wasn’t sure how to take it.

“Brave,” she corrected herself. “Amazing.”

“Hey now. You’re going to make me blush in the middle of the mess hall,” he said, rubbing the back of his already very blue neck.

“I’m just… proud of you, I guess,” she finished lamely. He went quiet and she wondered if she’d gone a little overboard- maybe he’d been looking for a slap on the shoulder and a _good choice buddy._

“Thank-you, Commander,” he said quietly, his voice sounding a little uneven. He was happy, though- something about the curve of his mandibles and the set of his eyes.

“You can call me by name, you know,” she told him, equally quiet. It was like there was no one else in the room for a minute.

“Thank-you, Shepard.”

Close enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -crowd awwweeeessss-


	4. Chapter 4

Faust’s eyes were starting to hurt from the blue interface screen in front of her, so she resolved to shut it off after she was _absolutely sure_ she didn’t have any unread emails when there was a knock at her door. “Yeah?” she called hesitantly, almost afraid that the battle was going to start. Joker had promised her a few hours yet and she was loathe to give them up.

“It’s me- uh, it’s Garrus.” His voice was muffled and he sounded like he was regretting his nerve, so she opened the door before he could change his mind. He was holding wine- well, two bottles of wine, one light pink and levo and the other pretty much totally obscured by the opaque bottle- dextro, she assumed. “Thought you might need to relax a little,” he said, his whole body poised to run.

“Come on in, Vakarian,” she said, stepping aside. He shuffled inside and looked around.

“Damn, Commander. This is a lot nicer than the crew quarters- just saying,” he said, turning to face her when the door closed again.

“Oh I know. I just recently got upgraded,” she reminded him, settling down on her couch. Anderson hadn’t had a couch in the room, preferring a simple table and chairs, but Faust so rarely had company that she preferred to be able to stretch. “Do turians need special beds? Because of the…” She made a vague hourglass gesture with her hands and he shrugged.

“Turian mattresses have a… lump across middle for waist support. Standard issue in the turian military is a sort of foam thing that serves the same purpose,” he said, putting down the glasses he’d brought with him. The turian cup was sort of bizarre, although it made sense. He wouldn’t have been able to flex his lips around the brim, so his cup was contained with a spout that stretched up. _Turian shit will never get old,_ she thought at the same time he watched her drink from her glass with a strange look. “Human lips are weird,” he said, shaking his head.

“Why?” she laughed.

“They’re so… bendy,” he said with a sort of helpless confusion, then flexed his mandibles wide as if he were mimicking the movement of her mouth. She nudged him a little, deciding not to point out that the spout was weird. She still owed him for laughing at the chirping.

“Are you nervous about Illos?” she asked, leaning against his side. He seemed a lot more calm about it than she thought he’d be.

“Yes. No. Whatever happens, Saren has to be stopped,” he said with a set look on his face. “I’m… _ready_ for Illos, I guess, no matter how I feel about it personally.”

“Don’t go all Leeroy Jenkins now,” she warned. He frowned.

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Human turn of phrase- uh, the gist of it is that I want you to be careful,” she said dismissively. Sometimes she forgot that despite not growing up on Earth, most of her language was Earth-based and probably way too difficult to explain to someone with absolutely no human context.

“The great Commander Shepard preaching caution?” he teased.

“Shut up.” She shut her eyes and it hit her all at once how _tired_ she was. “Don’t let me fall asleep on you,” she warned Garrus without bothering to sit up. He was quiet for a second and she wondered if _he’d_ fallen asleep.

“It’d be all right, if you needed to,” he offered. “I just sort of… need to hear someone else breathe. It’s sort of quiet downstairs.”

“Wrex doesn’t count?” she teased.

“He wheezes a little when he breathes out,” Garrus admitted. “If I hadn’t left I would have started a fight I couldn’t finish.” Faust laughed and tried to make herself comfortable. He was wearing civilian clothes, but turians were still very… plate-y. He was warm, though, and about as relaxed as she figured he was capable of being.

“Sorry, I swear I’m awake,” she mumbled.

“I’ll shake you when Joker gives another ETA,” he promised.

. . . . .

Shepard paced back and forth in front of the Mako, waiting for Joker to give the all-clear. Saren had already kicked the shit out of their plan and things were looking grimmer and grimmer but she _wasn’t_ going to fail. Like hell she was letting some indoctrinated douche get the one-up on the entire fucking galaxy.

“Faust?” Garrus was there again, ready and waiting just like her. Wrex must have been cleaning his gun still because the turian was alone.

“Hey.” She was a little surprised- she was pretty sure that was the first time Garrus had ever called her by her _actual_ name- not that she minded Shepard, but she’d been starting to think no one _knew_ that it was just a surname.

“I just wanted to… this is sort of silly, especially to say to _you_ of all people but… Leeroy Jenkins, Commander,” he said, patting her stiffly on the back. She frowned.

“What?”

“I… did I use that wrong?” he asked, his nervous demeanor returning. She grinned. “You said it meant that I wanted you to be careful.”

“Kind of,” she said, then lightly punched his chestplate. “Thanks Garrus. You too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eyyyy so one more part that I haven't finished yet.
> 
> nebulaad.tumblr.com or chat or w/e or prompt me I like prompts too. a lot.
> 
> (leeeeeeeeeroooyyyyyy jeeennnkkiiinnssssss)


	5. Chapter 5

Faust was sleeping after the battle on the Citadel, in a great big heavy sweater and her underwear. She was tired all the way into her guts and the Alliance had set her up with a _really_ nice hotel room, so she’d decided to make her nest on the couch to do some work and had ended up falling asleep immediately afterwards.

Her omnitool was flashing, though, so she groggily hit the button while trying to work out a kink in her neck. “Yeah?” she mumbled, pawing at her eyes.

“C-Commander?”

“Yeah Vakarian?” She wondered if he was checking up on her- apparently he’d been absolutely miserable about her supposed death, which was touching. She’d never had a friend who cared so much before, or a really good looking friend that she wanted to do weird interspecies things with. She wondered if kissing was a thing with them.

“Sorry, I’ll call back later. You should get some rest-”

“Garrus.” He fumbled a little and she grinned even though he couldn’t see it.

“Right. I was… just going to ask if you were hungry,” he said, his voice betraying his nerves.

“I’m always hungry,” she returned, already about ten times more alert than she had been.

“There’s a… place, it’s nice. Black tie and everything- or if you didn’t want to-”

“I want to,” she said, jolting upwards.

“You don’t have to-”

“I _want_ to. We should celebrate,” she said eagerly, scrambling up. “Black tie you said?”

“Yeah- did you… want me to call the others?” he asked slowly. She froze, gnawing at her lip.

“Do _you_ want to?” she asked.

“You’re the Commander, Faust. Your call.”

“Fuck off- I’m on shore leave. Technically the Citadel is _your_ jurisdiction, Officer Vakarian,” she reminded him. _Do I have any formal clothes besides dress blues?_

“Well I… _was_ hoping that maybe we could keep it just… you and me?” he suggested haltingly. She grinned so wide her face hurt a little.

“Great- send me the address of your apartment and you can show me the… place,” she said, tugging on the hem of her sweater.

“Sent. I’ll… see you in a little bit, ma’am,” he said. She cringed a little- she’d _liked_ being Faust and always hated being _ma’am._

“See you, sir,” she returned, closing the connection.

. . . . .

The asari at the boutique recommended a loose-fitting, sheer white blouse with a v-neck collar, and a short black pencil skirt. “It’s professional but immensely flattering, especially with your height Commander,” she’d said with a painfully plastered on smile. _Long shift,_ Faust thought sympathetically.

She rushed to Garrus’ apartment, hoping that the outfit shopping hadn’t taken too long. He lived on the upper floors and buzzed her in quickly, and she stood on the elevator more tense than when she’d been shouting down Saren. It seemed counterintuitive to try to dress up to impress him or to be so nervous about it, because he probably didn’t even find humans attractive.

“Shepard,” he greeted, opening the door. His eyes dropped to her hips and she grinned.

“Hi Vakarian.” He was wearing black and white, matching her outfit but somewhat more… uniform. “Dress blues?” she asked.

“Well, yeah. Turians don’t have a booming formalwear industry, since we all technically own a uniform. Drawbacks of a military culture- is that weird with humans?” he asked (his eyes were still on her waist and she was sure he thought she didn’t notice but she _did)._

“Not really among military humans. My uniform pants are too short for me though so I decided against it,” she said, only partially lying.

“You look good, Commander,” he said, his eyes dragging back up to her face. She grinned knowingly and he averted his eyes entirely with a cough. “So uh- the restaurant. _Really_ nice place, amino friendly so hopefully we can get out of the evening without any severe allergic reactions.” He gestured her forward towards the door and she nearly jumped when he put his hand on her back.

Thankfully she didn’t, or she was sure he would’ve stopped.

“I trust your judgement Garrus,” she assured him. She’d expected the hands to freak her out a little- two fingers and a thumb by design were definitely kind of pushing the anatomical differences envelope, but it actually wasn’t that weird. He just felt like Garrus- Garrus’ hand on her back, his voice slightly to her right…

 _Is this a date?_ If he’d been human she would have said she was certain, but turians definitely had different work relationships. Anderson had told her that, how much fraternization was actually permitted and how crew stress was handled by actual physical fights.

There were two options: either it was a date and Garrus wouldn’t have been as thrown off about the whole _chain of command_ issue as she was, or it wasn’t a date and Garrus just didn’t see a reason he couldn’t take his Commander and good friend out for the night.

She might have actually asked, but her voice died in her throat when the buzzer to his apartment started going off frantically. _Maybe_ she was a little more jumpy than she’d assured the Alliance psych doctors she wasn’t- she reached back immediately for her shotgun that she hadn’t brought, and failing that, lit up with the hazy blue of her biotics.

“It’s my intercom Shep,” Garrus said loudly, to be heard over the unpleasantly shrill noise. She calmed down, putting her hands behind her back sheepishly. He smiled to reassure her, then walked over to answer whoever was demanding entry. “Hello?”

“ _Garrus , it’s me. Your mother fell down some stairs back home and-”_ Garrus immediately allowed him entry, suddenly very tense.

The turian that entered off the elevator _had_ to be Garrus’ dad. They were practically carbon copies of each other: the same sharp chin, wideset mandibles, and blue markings on his face. She’d have to ask about those- preferably after everyone stopped panicking. “She’s fine,” was the first thing Talus Vakarian said.

“You could have opened with that,” Garrus shot back irritably.

“Who is this?” Talus’ eyes shot towards her and Faust stiffened up, feeling unspeakably awkward. She snapped to attention- usually what she did when she felt weird around people. They expected it of her.

“Faust Shepard, Alliance Navy,” she clipped out, looking between him and his son.

“Commander Shepard. I’m sure you’ve heard of her,” Garrus said tersely.

“The Spectre,” Talus said in an uncomfortably neutral tone. There was almost a full minute of silence before Talus averted his eyes and refocused his attention on Garrus. “I’m on my way over to Cipritine now- are you coming?” he asked.

“Yes- Shepard, I’m sorry. Raincheck?” he asked, taking her hand.

“Of course. You want the Normandy to take you?” she asked. Fastest ship in the damn galaxy, and the crew enjoyed a certain amount of celebrity status as it’d been the ship to save the Citadel.

“I think it’d be too much of a pain to get in the air right now- but thanks. I… might not be back for boarding call, but I’m with you if you want me Commander,” he added uncertainly.

“Don’t worry about it. Shoot me a message if you want pickup and we’ll be there,” she promised.

. . . . .

On her slow walk back to the hotel, Shepard stopped by the boutique and left the asari who had helped her a five hundred credit tip with a tired smile. Without Garrus to distract her, the post-battle sleepiness was quickly overtaking her again.

But she remembered how Garrus had looked at her and figured it was damn well worth the credits to reward a job well done.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> caught between "garrus calls for pick up and is there when the normandy gets wrekt" and "garrus doesnt get the chance to call for pickup before the normandy gets wrekt". either way shepard dies. anyway this was that, thank u for all the comments wowie wow wow !!


End file.
